MUMBAI: Filmmaker Zack Snyder makes his animation debut with the fantasy family adventure Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.

The film is based on the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books by Kathryn Lasky. After his claim to fame with movies like 300 and Watchme, this will be his first animation movie. The film follows Soren, a young owl enthralled by his father’s epic stories of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, a mythic band of winged warriors who had fought a great battle to save all of owlkind from the evil Pure Ones.

The film features the voices of Helen Mirren, Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Emily Barclay, Abbie Cornish, Ryan Kwanten, Anthony LaPaglia, Miriam Margolyes, Sam Neill, Richard Roxburgh and David Wenham.

Snyder said, “I know it sounds cliché,but my kids are always saying to me, ‘Dad, when are you gonna make a movie we can see?’ And the chance to work with the animators at Animal Logic really appealed to me; there were moments in Happy Feet that I found artistically breathtaking. So when I saw their initial Guardians artwork, and then read the stories of Soren and his friends on this incredible quest, I looked at it as a perfect opportunity to bring my own sensibilities to a family film.”

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole hits the screens in October.